Gentle
by Shizuku Tsukishima749
Summary: -Bookverse/Movieverse AU.- She wasn't so gentle that she'd cast the memories aside so drastically; she was so gentle that she'd never let herself commit such a sin against those that meant so much. A different side to the path Susan takes. Oneshot.


_A/N: _This is a short piece on Susan I thought up recently. I was thinking about Susan and how her title as the Gentle Queen spelled out her reason for giving up on Narnia, when I thought, 'What if it was the other way around? What if, instead, her moniker was the reason she stayed true to Narnia?' Thus, this was born. Besides, I needed a little more practice in writing the siblingship (my word= sibling relationship) between Lucy and Susan.

As I've never written the scene between Aslan, Peter, and Susan at the end of PC before (though I've seen a few _brilliant _examples of it!), I tried my hand at it. Though it wasn't expected, I went along with my muse and was mostly happy with the result. Because I'm so inexperienced, however, please tell me how I did! (Oh, and I tried to rephrase the information Aslan gave Edmund and Lucy at the end of VDT in a new and interesting way. Please tell me how that worked out, too!) Thank you!

_Disclaimer: _I do not own the Chronicles of Narnia or anything/anyone affiliated. C.S. Lewis does, along with Fox Productions and Walden Media.

* * *

**Gentle**

She had been quiet since leaving Narnia that morning, since stepping through the Door in the Air, since the two of them—for Lucy was there, too—had left their brothers behind at the station. The very station that had been the house of magic as they'd traveled to their true home just moments ago.

It was for this reason, then, that she could feel her little sister staring at her from the corner of her eye. Lucy was trying to be discreet, of course, and Aslan knew her years in the Narnian army had well honed such an important skill, but Susan _was _her sister. Sometimes, she could simply tell with these things. With _her_. Her brothers, too, were easy to read. After so many years together in Narnia, they knew each other _so well_...

Her breath left her in a rush, one she hadn't been expecting, and she nearly choked. Her eyes, too, were suddenly hot and stinging, and she was completely lost to bewilderment. Was she…_crying_? And…and _wh_y—?

_No_! No… _No_… She calmed with each breath, the smarting ebbing away from her eyes and the breath coming back to her lungs. _No_. She knew well the reason for the tears, unbidden or no, and she would not reflect so soon. Not so soon…

And yet, her mind had already begun without her. The Floodgates of Memory had opened, released the most recent and soul-wrenching recollection to date, and it would replay before she had even an inkling of stopping it. Suddenly, she felt very afraid. If only Peter were here…

* * *

"_Do you know why I have called you, Son of Adam, Daughter of Eve?"_

_Had she not loved Him so much, she felt she would have started running the moment He'd opened His great mouth. Those words…that _voice_…it was all so very hard to bear. There was such a sadness, and yet such a glory, to them, and she didn't know where to turn. Then, though, she felt her brother's hand take hers in his gentle, loving grasp, and a wonderful calm washed over her. She squeezed his hand. He was there, too. She would have to remember that._

"_No, Sir," her brother said, his voice as strong as ever despite the light sweat that had started in the hand she held. "We merely came. Though know that any time we can spend with you is joyous on our part."_

_The Lion smiled, a warm laugh coming from deep in His throat. "Indeed. It is for me also, my Son." He turned to look at Susan, then, and the flicker of an unmistakable emotion in His eyes made the girl stiffen. "There is a storm in your mind, Queen Susan of Narnia. You are stifled once more?"_

_His tone showed no belief in such a notion, of knowing the truth far better than even she herself knew it, and that alone made Susan break._

_A strangled sob dislodged itself from her depths, and she flew forward with a cry, throwing her arms around the Lion's neck as she buried her face in His mane. He nuzzled her side for a very long moment, allowing what sounded very akin to a purr as He offered the utmost comfort. She sniffed from time to time, the salt water still rushing from her eyes at a rapid pace, though the soothing effect of His mane appeared to be working very gradually._

"_Aslan—" she tried, but was cut off when another choking sob constricted her throat. Perhaps, though, for what was coming, that was best. _

"_Why do you cry, dear girl?" the Lion asked gently, stepping back from Susan and breathing on her. In a moment, the tears were gone, her once wet and red face was now dry and rightly pigmented, and her blue eyes shone again. However, her expression was still broken. _

"_I—Something's wrong, Aslan." At His questioning, yet knowing look, she continued, "I can feel it. Whatever you're going to tell us—" and here she had to swallow thickly in order to keep herself from becoming the same sobbing mess as before, "—it's not _good _news, is it, Sir?"_

_Chancing a glance at Peter, who by now was frightened, but also every bit as much the High King here as he had been out on the Second Battlefield of Beruna not four days earlier, Susan ached to be near him. Nevertheless, she felt an even stronger, almost unconscious urge to remain close to Aslan. _

"_No, Susan the Gentle," Aslan admitted, as had been His mission the entire time; yet, as He did so, it was unable to be told whether His tail drooped or rose, whether a smile fell or formed, whether His eyes were jubilant or sorrowful, "the message I have for you is not one you or yours would wish to hear." _

_He Himself gazed at the High King this time, and the boy-man relaxed to what some would call an almost scandalous extent under the golden stare of his King. The corners of the black Lion-lips assuredly climbed that time, and the two with Him were decidedly more composed. Coming to stand beside his sister, Peter took hold of her smooth, delicate hand again, a look on his face of someone accustomed to concealing terror behind determination. _

"_We're ready, Aslan," he squeezed Susan's hand strongly, "whatever this is."_

_Nodding, the Lion grinned, though it would not be a lie to speculate a hint of reluctance there. His eyes alight with both love and pain, He completed the hardest part of His Father's Instruction._

"_Then, my Dears, you must understand the burden I am about to set upon your shoulders." Peter stood straighter at this, ready and willing to take on the nameless, bodiless foe if it meant his family would suffer less and live more. Aslan caught his eye with a more than satisfied smile. "Do you trust me? Do you love me? Do you hold me above all others, above all who would seek to oppose me, to sway you with other, false candidates for worship?"_

_The siblings spoke in immediate, unbridled unison. "Yes, Aslan. Always."_

_He nodded solemnly. "It is good." He was quiet then, pausing in His words. Getting the impression that He was taking a much-needed breath, Peter and Susan took one as well. Lion's Mane, they had a feeling they would need it… "Children, do you remember the Day of the White Stag? The day you returned through the Wardrobe to your own world?"_

"_Of course, Sir. It was…" here, it seemed Peter had difficulty going on, let alone managing a smile, "…an interesting time."A large, wet tongue licked the unnoticed tears from his cheeks a second later, and by the time the Lion pulled back to offer the same consolation to Susan, Peter's shadows had been temporarily chased away. _

"_But you came back, Peter. You are here now." The Lion's voice was quiet, rumbling, and warm, and Peter turned to look at his sister's beautiful face as she cocked her head to see his. _

_Smiling, he said, "Yes, Sir. We are."_

"_Such events as that and this, the blowing of the Horn that brought you here nearly thirteen hundred years later, shall not occur again." The message behind His foreboding tone stripped them of their glows and grins, and they snapped their necks to gaze at him with quickly-crumbling countenances. "The time for shifting between worlds has come to an end, Children."_

"_What?" Peter whispered faintly; any louder, and his voice would have cracked under the weight he was now feeling. _

"_You have matured in this world. You have bled, grown, loved, and lived. You have done all that this world requires of you." The Lion's eyes filled with tears; Peter and Susan could feel like emotions growing within them, but such things were slowed by the lasting and relieving effects of Aslan's tongue and breath. "Narnia has healed your family beyond your wildest dreams. Now comes the time for you to bring back that glory to your own world, just as you should strive to know me there as you do here."_

_The King and Queen were silent, too stunned to truly register His words at the moment. They were leaving? Again? For _good_? And—_what? _He was— _

"_There? You're—you're there, too, Aslan?" Susan's voice was absolutely amazed, sounding breathily high-pitched as it was also laced with the immense pain from the Lion's preceding news. _

"_Yes, Child. But my name is different there, not so easily found that it is laughable, yet not so hard that it cannot be unearthed. It is true that you will have to search, but such is the true reason Narnia is so much a part of you. Seeing me as I am here, knowing me as intimately as you do, will only make the knowledge of my identity in your world easier to accept." _

_There was silence again, the Telmarine-style room in which they stood offering no breach in it. Then, a thought occurred to both Peter and Susan, and they suddenly feared for their younger siblings greatly. _

"_Us—not returning—you mean, Lucy and Edmund—? Oh, Aslan, please! Not them, too! Not yet!" Susan pleaded, not able to bear the already-conjured picture of her emotionally crushed brother and sister. It couldn't really end this way, could it?_

"_Have you faith, Queen Susan?" Startled at the question, the girl flinched. They both knew what He meant. She had been weak before; would she be so now? _

_No. She was so scared, her very heart was breaking, but…she had felt so _cold _then, stumbling through that land of stubborn, 'practical' disbelief. She wouldn't let Him go again. She had learned her lesson._

"_Yes, Aslan. I'm sorry. I know you'll care for them, for us, as you have always." Ignoring the shake in her voice, the heartache finally showing through, she outstretched her hand to caress the flat of His nose. Leaning into it, He gave what sounded very much like a purr, and Peter joined in soon after, his hand stroking the Lion's head. _

_Their free arms draped across His massive, powerful shoulders, they buried their faces in His mane and only pulled back when the Lion began walking, leading them toward the door and down the hall. They resumed their quiet, private talk as they went, but such things as those mentioned were too sacred, too painful, to relay. _

_It was not many minutes later that Caspian, adorned in his fitting Narnian attire, found them, alerting them to the readied state of the assembly the Lion had omnisciently ordered earlier that morning._

_The haunted look upon the Queen's face as Caspian caught sight of it that day was not faulty. She was miserable and appeared so, eyes puffy and red from crying, the rest of her skin as pale as the white of her dress, while her limbs almost begged to tremble beneath her shaken foundation. _

_Yet, she was Susan the Gentle, Queen of Narnia, and she would not submit to self-pity or despair when others—like the young new King himself—deserved to see her as she had been in her own time in her last minutes home. _

_She would stand tall until out of cover under which to hide, until gone from the scrutiny of the too-precious eyes. _

_After all, this was hardest on those with the Gentle Heart._

* * *

"Su?" A voice, a hand on her arm, and she gasped, jerking forward and opening wide eyes. Looking to her right, her breath was released and taken in all at once as she laid eyes on her concerned little sister. Leaning forward, Lucy frowned slightly, giving Susan's arm a gentle squeeze. "Are you all right? You're…you're crying."

Reaching up with one hand, the elder girl was shocked to find that her sister was right. Her cheeks were warm and wet, her eyes swollen from the many tears that had escaped and the additional sum that were gathering to do the same.

Making to wipe them away with her hands, she was stopped when two hands lightly took her wrists. Glancing at Lucy, the younger girl grinned understandingly and removed one of her many handkerchiefs from the pocket of her school blazer. Gently cupping her sister's chin with one hand, she wiped the tears away with tender, careful movements.

Susan, considerably calmer under the amorous care of her youngest sibling, began to breathe easier, settling back against the train compartment's seat. She closed her eyes again and focused on her sister's affectionate strokes, willing herself to keep from falling asleep while under the influence of such a steadily loving rhythm.

"Are you _really_, Su?" The question was one filled with worry, with guilt at even having to be asked at all.

"Really what, dear?" Susan asked tiredly, slowly opening her eyes to peer at the girl. In the blue of her eyes, in the curved lines at the corners of her mouth, Lucy appeared suddenly imploring, suddenly hiding—and not so well—a raging fear.

And all too soon, Susan understood.

"_Lucy_!" Her voice was a breath of a whisper, appalled and shocked and grieved beyond belief. Her _sister _thought this of her?! "I—How could you think—?" At the same time, the memories flooded back to her—of a certain gorge and of a certain Lion, of a certain servant and of a certain disbeliever—and she quickly snapped her mouth shut.

For a long time, she gazed at her sister, the girl she had watched grow into a beautiful Queen before she was forced into a war-torn child's persona, and wondered how in the world her pure heart kept on. Kneeling before her on the floor of the compartment, the smaller girl's eyes widened and stomach clenched, her face becoming very pale as her sister took her hands and held them firmly.

"I would _never _give Him up, Lucy. I would never give up on you or Edmund or Peter. I would never let go of our home in Narnia or our time there. I was…fainthearted before, Lu, but you must believe me." Smiling adoringly as she squeezed her sister's hands, her eyes welled with tears again. "I love you, Lucy, and I love the boys, too. It hurts without Narnia—" here, her voice broke, "—but I've got _you_, most faithful servant." The younger girl returned the smile at the nickname; she hadn't been called that since their first time in Narnia. "If you'll help me."

Practically leaping off the seat, Lucy threw her arms around her sister's neck and hugged her strongly, the black-haired girl bringing her to sit sideways in her lap. Embracing each other tightly, Susan buried her face in her sister's hair as Lucy burrowed into the crook between her neck and shoulder.

"I'm sorry, Su."

"No, dear. It's my fault you're afraid of losing me." She hugged the child tighter. "But you won't. I promise."

For Susan, through all her faults and drawbacks, was far too gentle for such a thing as the pain of denying people, of denying a place, of denying a _Lion_ she so loved.

* * *

_A/N: _Thank you so much for reading! I hope you liked this revamped look at Susan's choice!_  
_


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